GATHERINGS

Mixing it up

At deejay school, music background is helpful but not required

May 15, 2005|By Chris McNamara, Special to the Tribune

The dance floor of Excalibur nightclub is filled with people dressed like clubgoers. Dance music pumps from massive speakers.

And yet, nobody is dancing. (That will come a few hours later.) This afternoon students are receiving tutorials--this is a seminar on software and the latest techniques to produce the hottest dance tracks. This is deejay school.

Outside of a smattering of females, the 30 students are male and the uniform is odd hats, bandannas and creative facial hair. And, as they are puffing cigarettes and downing beers, deejay college might be the more fitting term.

"This is all computer-based music," says Jay Reagan, 29, deejay and product specialist with Digi Design, which is co-hosting this event. "And this is a workshop for tech people, people who produce music."

People like Chicago's Johnny Darling, a deejay and producer of hip-hop and R&B music. He has come this afternoon to broaden his knowledge of music software, in the hopes of expanding his business without exploding his budget.

"This is the most economic way to get the most out of what I produce," says the 31-year-old. "I don't have a million dollars to spend on a studio."

Onstage, David Muniz of software manufacturer M-Audio lectures while an image of the computer screen he is working on is projected behind him. The students are rapt.

"I consider deejays musicians," Muniz announces at one point, and the pupils nod in agreement.

That's a sore point with some in the deejay culture. When a laptop computer replaces a guitar, a drum kit, hell, even an orchestra, some critics question whether musical ability plays second fiddle to a pricey Macintosh.

"Does that sound real to you?" Muniz asks the audience at one point, as a booming dance track plays. "That's because it is!"

He then begins instructing how to cut and paste audio into a track, and selects an erotic moan from Prince, which is pulled from one song and dropped a dozen times into an original dance track--"Ohh! Ohh! Ohh!"

It's a strange curriculum. The songs on the computer screen resemble spreadsheets; columns represent music broken into snippets of time. A jagged line runs across the top of the screen, making it appear more like a cardiac monitor than a song sheet. Muniz and Reagan speak in techno-ese--the term "input quantanization" is used repeatedly. Not once do they mention a B-flat or an F-sharp.

"People here are getting an idea of how easy this is to do. One piece of software, which costs $400 or $500, replaces a studio," explains the 28-year-old Muniz after leaving the stage. "Half of them won't go on to do anything huge musically, but they will find satisfaction in this as a hobby."

Once the workshops end, the students have a short walk next door to Vision nightclub, where the Midwest (which extends from Texas to Minnesota) regional finals of the Dance Music Community (DMC) World DJ Championships are under way.

Upward of 200 people focus eyes on the stage, where the 13 deejays compete head to head, turntable to turntable.

In this . . . in this . . . in this corner

DJ Sleeper of Cincinnati, with a sweat suit hanging off his slight frame, bounces between the two record players, slapping black albums onto the decks and manipulating the sounds with knobs and needles. He spins 360s, scratches behind his back, and licks his fingertips. The crowd roars.

When his six-minute performance is up, opponent DJ Hurtt prepares to begin. (It doesn't boost his street cred when his mom climbs the stage and snaps a photo of her baby, whom she named Todd Hurtt 20 years ago.) He pumps his arms in the air throughout his set, timed to the climactic moments of each song. He mouths the words to the 20-second snippets of each track he samples.

And the crowd, witnessing a particularly deft move or recognizing a favorite song, sends cheers up to the ceiling.

When his set is complete, DJ Hurtt convenes with his mom and dad, Stella and A.J. Jones of Battle Creek, Mich., who pepper him with hugs and compliments.

"This is my first time competing," he says, the adrenaline evident in his wide eyes. "I'm just here for the experience."

And the winner is . . .

San Antonio's DJ Kico goes on to win the competition, earning the right to compete in the national DMC finals in New York, then, perhaps, the world finals.

"I had a ball," beams the champion, real name Gonzalo Ultreras, 28, who lived in Chicago until recently. "It was great to be back in that environment--great vibes all the way through."

"He was by far the best," says Reagan, no longer an instructor but a judge. "He has stage presence, creativity and incredible beat juggling."

For those who didn't attend the workshop, beat juggling is placing the same record on two turntables, playing them simultaneously, and manipulating them to create your own beat. And in a nutshell, dancing to your own beat is what this scene is all about.